Success Stories

Look for problems to solve and people will pay for you for the solutions – Dr. D. N. Rao, JARSH mentor

What happens when you tell three young engineering students to not look for business opportunities but for problems to solve? They come up with ideas by the dozens!

Working off the advice of their mentor, Dr. D. N. Rao, our three ideapreneurs Kausthub Kaundinya, Sreekanth Kommula and Anand Kumar set off examining their surroundings for real world problems, problems that could result in viable product solutions, products that did not yet exist and yet could result in generating a sizeable market. Along the way the problems they tackled ranged from shoelaces which get un-tied to the rising fuel prices. And then they started examining their personal experiences.

Kaustubh, used to travel over 60 kms on this bike to his college, and like all bikers had a love-hate relationship with his helmet. In the arid heat of Telangana, the helmet was uncomfortable, heavy, and unbearably hot. What if the helmet was air-conditioned? our ideapreneurs asked themselves.

And thus, was born JARSH - Just Another Rather Safe Helmet.

When pricing made an air-conditioned bike helmets unviable, our trio pivoted to an industrial use case of an air-conditioned helmet. With sheer hard work and resilience, the team managed to get a working product ready in just 2 years, nothing short of a miracle.

Once the product was ready for the market, it needed to build its credibility, its brand. The RICH team helped JARSH connect with various stakeholders who could help leverage their innovation. From industry connects taking the product to its end-user, to Manufacturers and Distributors, Investors and Strategists, RICH assisted JARSH to tailor and adapt the product for an industrial environment. RICH showcased the JARSH Safety Helmet at its first anniversary and got the Helmet officially launched by Hon’ble Shri KTR Rao on 24th February, 2018.

Subsequently, RICH has helped JARSH reach a wider customer base including multinational organizations like JCB India, who have brought JARSH onboard and are selling their products in JCB showrooms across the country.

Says Ajit Rangnekar, Director General, RICH “Big Innovations to basic products like Helmets are far more difficult to achieve commercially. But it is these basic innovations that make the maximum impact on the lives of masses. At RICH, our role is to identify entrepreneurs with such innovative ideas and give them the right support and mentoring to achieve their true potential.”

But the JARSH team is not resting on its laurels. Since the COVID lockdown, JARSH team has attempted to tackle the problem of sanitizing bank notes for organisations that deal with huge quantities of cash on a daily basis. Their solution to it is as is elegant in its simplicity – a cash counting machine that also sanitizes currency notes! RICH is now helping JARSH to connect with some of the biggest manufacturers of cash counting machines in India to retail it for banks and other similar customers.

That’s not all. JARSH has also expanded into agri-tech, with their first product in sWave, an animal repellent equipment to protect crops and farmland from wild animals!

They say that nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. And JARSH just seems to be that idea.